5 Consumer Expectations for Mobile

Mobile devices are
taking over. By 2016,
there will be 1 billion
smartphone users,
with 257 million
smartphones and
126 million tablets
in the U.S. alone,
according to
Forrester Research.

In order to capitalize on this popular technological
trend, businesses must keep up with the expectations of
their mobile customers. This doesn’t just mean launching
a mobile site so your business is accessible on smartphones
and tablets, it also includes launching a mobile
site that is truly optimized for the user experience, just
as one hopefully does with its traditional websites.
Keep the following best practices in mind
when developing for the mobile experience and
don’t forget to engage in regular mobile testing
(wsm.co/mobiletesting2013) to ensure that your
brand is continually meeting user expectations.

1. Create a Simple Design

Business owners often launch mobile sites that are
exact replicas of their desktop version, but the problem
in doing so is that the user experience differs dramatically
when moving to a 4-inch screen. Users
already have to rely on their fingers to click links,
type, and zoom in and out of content, which is why
Dennis Mink, chief marketing officer at DudaMobile
says mobile sites should, above all else, be simple.

“Where I see businesses struggling is they have this
idea that they need to take their entire website and port
it over to mobile,” said Mink. “The reality is, you don’t
need to port your entire website over, you just need to
make decisions and trim it down to the most core information
that people are looking for.”

Therefore, business owners should think less
about design and more about their customers’ needs
as they produce a mobile site.

2. Highlight Important Info

When a consumer uses a mobile device to look up
information about a business, they are typically seeking
out directions or service or contact information.

The mobile consumer experience can be improved
by featuring all of this information on a mobile site’s
initial landing page. While additional information can
be included, it shouldn’t be the site’s focus. After all,
most consumers aren’t accessing your mobile site so
they can follow your business on Twitter. And directly
next to your site’s most important information, consider
including relevant calls-to-action.

3. Feature Calls-to-Action

Mobile sites usually have one or two calls-to-action,
which typically makes it easy for consumers to contact
the business or locate it on a map, according to Mink.

These buttons should be large enough to be clicked
on with a finger, and when pushed, should automatically
start dialing the company’s phone number or
open up the maps app to provide directions. Furthermore
these navigational elements should be located at
the top of the mobile site, so consumers can take immediate
action once the site loads.

4. Keep Sites Quick

One of the biggest influencers of bounce rate on both
traditional and mobile websites is site speed. Slow
speeds on mobile sites can actually be more of an inconvenience
than their desktop counterparts, because
mobile users are generally trying to find information
as quickly as possible. Moreover, fast websites improve
the user experience, as well as metrics like conversion
rate, average order value and time-on-site.

Solutions like SiteSpect AMPS (Automated Multivariate
Performance Solution) can help users optimize
site speed, automatically and non-intrusively. SiteSpect
AMPS proves its impact by not only measuring speed,
but also specific key performance indicators (KPIs), including
bounce rate, conversion rate, average order
value and abandonment rate. Once the site’s speed has
been optimized, it is time to consider screen sizes.

5.Optimize for Screen Size

It is important to remember that mobile devices
come in a variety of shapes and sizes. For instance,
tablets fall into the “mobile” category, despite the
fact that these devices are used much differently
than smartphones.

“So much of tablet usage is done at home, so I think
that the expectations are different,” said Mink. “People
aren’t going to call a business through their tablet,
but they will through their phone. So there are some
differences in behavior that you’ll find depending on
the device that they are using.”

That said, you don’t necessarily need to create a
tablet-optimized site initially. In fact, traditional websites
are usually sufficient for tablet users. Website
owners, however, should keep a close eye on traffic
to determine if creating a tablet-optimized site would
be beneficial. If your site starts receiving a lot of traffic
via tablet devices, it might be time to consider
launching a site redesign that makes your site easy
to use on both tablets and desktops, as Website Magazine
recently did, or using a platform like Skava,
which offers a tablet-specific commerce solution.